Johnson eats his words after cannibal gaffe

First it was Liverpudlians, now it is the people of Papua New Guinea. Boris Johnson, the Conservative education spokesman, has again displayed his gift for diplomacy by linking the islanders to "cannibalism and chief-killing".

Mr Johnson angered the country's high commission in London after a Daily Telegraph column in which he gloated over the Labour party's woes.

The MP for Henley, who was ordered by then Conservative leader Michael Howard to apologise to Liverpool in 2004 after accusing its residents of "wallowing in victimhood", said he would be happy to add Papua New Guinea to his "global itinerary of apology". He wrote in the Telegraph: "For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party."

Jean L Kekedo, the country's high commissioner in London, said she was "shocked and appalled". "How far removed and ill-informed can Mr Johnson be from the reality of the situation in modern-day Papua New Guinea?" she said. Cannibalism ended 200 years ago after European explorers converted its people to Christianity, she said.

Mr Johnson apologised but he said he was not mistaken about cannibalism in the country. "I meant no insult to the people of Papua New Guinea, who I'm sure lead lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity ..." he said. "My remarks were inspired by a Time Life book I have which does indeed show relatively recent photos of Papua New Guinean tribes engaged in warfare, and I'm fairly certain that cannibalism was involved."